On the morning of July 3, 1994, a misreported forest fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado became one of the greatest tragedies in the annals of firefighting. In this dramatic reconstruction of the disaster and its aftermath, John N. MacLean tells the heroic and cautionary story of nature at its most unforgiving.

5 out of 5 stars

Amazing

By
Brendon
on
12-01-08

Granite Mountain

The Firsthand Account of a Tragic Wildfire, Its Lone Survivor, and the Firefighters Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice

By:
Brendan McDonough,
Stephan Talty - contributor

Narrated by:
John Glouchevitch

Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins

Unabridged

Overall

5 out of 5 stars
286

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
255

Story

5 out of 5 stars
253

Brendan McDonough was on the verge of becoming a hopeless, inveterate heroin addict when, for the sake of his young daughter, he decided to turn his life around. He enlisted in the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of elite firefighters based in Prescott, Arizona. Their leader, Eric Marsh, was in a desperate crunch after four hotshots left the unit, and, perhaps seeing a glimmer of promise in the skinny would-be recruit, he took a chance on the unlikely McDonough, and the chance paid off.

5 out of 5 stars

Thank you Brendan

By
Kenton
on
06-07-16

Young Men and Fire

By:
Norman Maclean

Narrated by:
Corey M. Snow

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
56

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
52

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
52

On August 5, 1949, a crew of 15 of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for 40 years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy.

5 out of 5 stars

Simply a masterpiece.

By
Barbara
on
06-27-18

Smokejumper

A Memoir by One of America's Most Select Airborne Firefighters

By:
Jason A. Ramos,
Julian Smith

Narrated by:
Ned Vaughn

Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
277

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
256

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
254

In this extraordinarily rare memoir by an active-duty jumper, Jason Ramos takes listeners into his exhilarating and dangerous world, explores smokejumping's remarkable history, and explains why their services are more essential than ever before.

3 out of 5 stars

tougher than it looks

By
Andy
on
08-29-15

On the Burning Edge

A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It

By:
Kyle Dickman

Narrated by:
Will Damron

Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
87

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
76

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
74

On June 28, 2013, a single bolt of lightning sparked an inferno that devoured more than 8,000 acres in Northern Arizona. Twenty elite firefighters - the Granite Mountain Hotshots - walked together into the blaze, tools in their hands and fire shelters on their hips. Only one of them walked out.

5 out of 5 stars

Be on the fire line, and in their heads.

By
Desiree May
on
04-29-16

The Fire Line

The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots

By:
Fernanda Santos

Narrated by:
Ari Fliakos

Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
79

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
70

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
71

When a bolt of lightning ignited a hilltop in the sleepy town of Yarnell, Arizona, in June of 2013, setting off a blaze that would grow into one of the deadliest fires in American history, the 20 men who made up the Granite Mountain Hotshots sprang into action. An elite crew trained to combat the most challenging wildfires, the Granite Mountain Hotshots were a ragtag family crisscrossing the American West and wherever else the fires took them. The Hotshots were loyal to one another and dedicated to the tough job they had.

5 out of 5 stars

touching

By
matt
on
05-04-16

Fire on the Mountain

The True Story of the South Canyon Fire

By:
John N. MacLean

Narrated by:
John N. MacLean

Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins

Abridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
159

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
118

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
119

On the morning of July 3, 1994, a misreported forest fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado became one of the greatest tragedies in the annals of firefighting. In this dramatic reconstruction of the disaster and its aftermath, John N. MacLean tells the heroic and cautionary story of nature at its most unforgiving.

5 out of 5 stars

Amazing

By
Brendon
on
12-01-08

Granite Mountain

The Firsthand Account of a Tragic Wildfire, Its Lone Survivor, and the Firefighters Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice

By:
Brendan McDonough,
Stephan Talty - contributor

Narrated by:
John Glouchevitch

Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins

Unabridged

Overall

5 out of 5 stars
286

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
255

Story

5 out of 5 stars
253

Brendan McDonough was on the verge of becoming a hopeless, inveterate heroin addict when, for the sake of his young daughter, he decided to turn his life around. He enlisted in the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of elite firefighters based in Prescott, Arizona. Their leader, Eric Marsh, was in a desperate crunch after four hotshots left the unit, and, perhaps seeing a glimmer of promise in the skinny would-be recruit, he took a chance on the unlikely McDonough, and the chance paid off.

5 out of 5 stars

Thank you Brendan

By
Kenton
on
06-07-16

Young Men and Fire

By:
Norman Maclean

Narrated by:
Corey M. Snow

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
56

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
52

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
52

On August 5, 1949, a crew of 15 of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for 40 years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy.

5 out of 5 stars

Simply a masterpiece.

By
Barbara
on
06-27-18

Smokejumper

A Memoir by One of America's Most Select Airborne Firefighters

By:
Jason A. Ramos,
Julian Smith

Narrated by:
Ned Vaughn

Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
277

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
256

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
254

In this extraordinarily rare memoir by an active-duty jumper, Jason Ramos takes listeners into his exhilarating and dangerous world, explores smokejumping's remarkable history, and explains why their services are more essential than ever before.

3 out of 5 stars

tougher than it looks

By
Andy
on
08-29-15

On the Burning Edge

A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It

By:
Kyle Dickman

Narrated by:
Will Damron

Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
87

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
76

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
74

On June 28, 2013, a single bolt of lightning sparked an inferno that devoured more than 8,000 acres in Northern Arizona. Twenty elite firefighters - the Granite Mountain Hotshots - walked together into the blaze, tools in their hands and fire shelters on their hips. Only one of them walked out.

5 out of 5 stars

Be on the fire line, and in their heads.

By
Desiree May
on
04-29-16

The Fire Line

The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots

By:
Fernanda Santos

Narrated by:
Ari Fliakos

Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
79

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
70

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
71

When a bolt of lightning ignited a hilltop in the sleepy town of Yarnell, Arizona, in June of 2013, setting off a blaze that would grow into one of the deadliest fires in American history, the 20 men who made up the Granite Mountain Hotshots sprang into action. An elite crew trained to combat the most challenging wildfires, the Granite Mountain Hotshots were a ragtag family crisscrossing the American West and wherever else the fires took them. The Hotshots were loyal to one another and dedicated to the tough job they had.

5 out of 5 stars

touching

By
matt
on
05-04-16

The Big Burn

Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

By:
Timothy Egan

Narrated by:
Robertson Dean

Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,710

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,262

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,267

In
The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan put the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl at the center of a rich history, told through characters he brought to indelible life. Now he performs the same alchemy with
The Big Burn, the largest-ever forest fire in America, a tragedy that cemented Teddy Roosevelt's legacy.

5 out of 5 stars

A fascinating history of early Forest Service

By
P. Bergh
on
11-11-09

3000 Degrees

The True Story of a Deadly Fire and the Men Who Fought It

By:
Sean Flynn

Narrated by:
Richard Rohan

Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
180

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
90

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
90

On December 3, 1999, the call crackled in to the men of the Worchester, Massachusetts Fire Department: a three-alarm warehouse blaze in a six-story windowless colossus of brick and mortar. What happened next - and how their lives and community were changed forever - offers an unprecedented look at these heroic men whose job it is to rush into burning buildings when everyone else just wants out.

4 out of 5 stars

Fascinating details

By
Diana - Audible
on
04-16-12

The Impossible Climb

Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life

By:
Mark Synnott

Narrated by:
Mark Deakins

Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
43

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
39

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
41

The Impossible Climb is an emotional drama driven by people exploring the limits of human potential and seeking a perfect, choreographed dance with nature. Honnold dared far beyond the ordinary, beyond any climber in history. But this story of sublime heights is really about all of us. Who doesn’t need to face fear down fear and make the most of the time we have?

5 out of 5 stars

Great book. Great narration.

By
Sherman
on
03-20-19

Fire

By:
Sebastian Junger

Narrated by:
Sebastian Junger,
Kevin Conway

Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins

Unabridged

Overall

3.5 out of 5 stars
76

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
44

Story

4 out of 5 stars
45

For readers and viewers of
The Perfect Storm, opening this long-awaited work by Sebastian Junger will be like stepping off the deck of the Andrea Gail and into the inferno of a fire burning out of control in the steep canyons of Idaho. Here is the same meticulous prose brought to bear on the inner workings of a terrifying elemental force; here is a cast of characters risking everything in an effort to bring that force under control.

2 out of 5 stars

Not as advertised

By
Anonymous User
on
09-02-17

Gutter Medicine: Twenty-Six Years as a Firefighter Paramedic

By:
Roger Huder

Narrated by:
Tom Jordan

Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins

Unabridged

Overall

5 out of 5 stars
53

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
50

Story

5 out of 5 stars
49

My career as a firefighter/paramedic stretched from 1974 to 2000 when were inventing EMS as we went along. These are stories from those years on the street. That place I named so long ago, the other reality that exists just outside most people’s everyday lives. It is a place that seems to exist parallel to the normal workaday existence: yet it is only a car accident or cardiac away for any of us. It manifested itself in brushfires, house fires, shootings, stabbings, hangings, accidents with injuries, cardiacs, codes, drownings, and a thousand other emergencies.

5 out of 5 stars

MASH Meets Hill Street

By
Betababe
on
03-03-19

Report from Engine Co. 82

By:
Dennis Smith

Narrated by:
Lloyd James

Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins

Abridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
161

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
133

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
131

Report from Engine Co. 82 is the story of one company of New York firefighters battling unimaginable death and destruction every day. Dennis Smith worked as a firefighter in the South Bronx, New York City, and the graphic detail and gripping prose of this firefighting classic drives the most important, accomplished, terrifying audiobook ever published on firefighting.

1 out of 5 stars

PUTS YOU ASLEEP

By
Bruja
on
08-03-18

Fire on the Horizon

The Untold Story of the Explosion Aboard the Deepwater Horizon

By:
Tom Shroder,
John Konrad

Narrated by:
Sean Pratt

Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
116

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
103

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
101

In the spring of 2010 the world watched for weeks as more than 200 million gallons of crude oil billowed from a hole three miles deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Warnings of various and imminent environmental consequences dominated the news. Deepwater drilling - largely ignored or misunderstood to that point - exploded in the American consciousness in the worst way possible.
Fire on the Horizon, written by veteran oil rig captain John Konrad and longtime Washington Post journalist Tom Shroder, recounts in vivid detail the life of the rig itself, from its construction to its improbable journey in the year 2000 to its end.

5 out of 5 stars

An incredibly well-told story

By
Shep
on
04-06-11

Lights and Sirens

The Education of a Paramedic

By:
Kevin Grange

Narrated by:
Sean Runnette

Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
254

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
232

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
228

Nine months of tying tourniquets and pushing new medications, of IVs, chest compressions, and defibrillator shocks - that was Kevin Grange's initiation into emergency medicine when, at age 36, he enrolled in the "Harvard of paramedic schools": UCLA's Daniel Freeman paramedic program, long considered one of the best and most intense paramedic training programs in the world.

5 out of 5 stars

if your looking into EMS as a career DO READ!!!i

By
Jess-eoohh
on
07-15-16

A Dark Night in Aurora

Inside James Holmes and the Colorado Theater Shootings

By:
William H. Reid MD MPH

Narrated by:
William H. Reid MD MPH

Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
144

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
134

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
130

On July 20, 2012 in Aurora, Colorado, a man in dark body armor and a gas mask entered a midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises with a tactical shotgun, a high-capacity assault rifle, and a sidearm. Soon twelve were dead and fifty-eight were wounded. A Dark Night in Aurora uses the twenty-three hours of unredacted interview transcripts never seen by the public and Reid’s research to bring the listener inside the mind of a mass murderer. The result is chilling, gripping study of abnormal psychology and how a lovely boy named Jimmy became a killer.

5 out of 5 stars

Captivating

By
Debra Tremoulis
on
09-02-18

Blood, Sweat, Tears and Prayers

Firefighting and EMS from Some of the Toughest Streets in America

By:
Gary Ludwig

Narrated by:
Kevin Kollins

Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
152

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
135

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
136

Gary Ludwig has been a firefighter/paramedic for 37 years and has worked in two of the most violent cities in the United States (St. Louis and Memphis) for 34 years of those years. He gathers his experiences in this field and presents an honest overview of his experiences with the emotions, feelings, sights, and gut-wrenching efforts men and women in this field experience to save a life or property. This is the insider look at a profession few of us fully appreciate: This book gains the profession the respect that is due.

5 out of 5 stars

A MUST for anyone in emergency services!!!!

By
Trent Longtin
on
12-20-18

Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun

By:
Wess Roberts

Narrated by:
James Lurie

Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
123

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
102

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
104

Discover the leadership secrets of the warrior who centuries ago shaped an aimless band of mercenary tribal nomads into the undisputed rulers of the ancient world-and who today offers timeless lessons in win-directed, take-charge management. Based on historical research-and filled with illuminating maxims-this essential guide offers the wisdom of a man who unified thousands, led the charge, kept the peace, picked his enemies wisely, and negotiated brilliantly.

5 out of 5 stars

Knocks you down with the force of a horde

By
Ray Johnson
on
06-05-18

When The Dancing Stopped

The Real Story of the Morro Castle Disaster and Its Deadly Wake

By:
Brian Hicks

Narrated by:
Dick Hill

Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
182

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
117

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
118

In the best-selling tradition of The Devil in the White City, award-winning author Brian Hicks tells the explosive story of the Morro Castle, the elegant luxury liner that burned off the coast of New Jersey on September 7, 1934. The captain died under mysterious circumstances seven hours before his ship caught fire off the New Jersey coast.

4 out of 5 stars

Real life murder mystery!

By
Kristi R.
on
09-06-13

Publisher's Summary

The Esperanza Fire started October 26, 2006, in the San Jacinto Mountains above the Banning Pass near Cabazon, California. It destroyed 41,000 acres and dozens of homes and cost the taxpayers $16 million dollars. But by far the highest costs of the conflagration were the lives of the five-man crew of Engine 57, the first engine crew ever killed fighting a wildland blaze. Fire and superheated gases had erupted in a freak "area ignition," sending flames racing across three-quarters of a mile in mere seconds, engulfing the crew and the house they were defending.

The deadly blaze was quickly determined to be no accident. Within a week, serial arsonist Raymond Lee Oyler was arrested and charged with almost two dozen counts of arson - and five counts of first degree murder. The Esperanza Fire recounts with drama and precision the gripping details of the fire and of Oyler's precedent-shattering trial and its stunning conclusion.

John Maclean spent more than five years researching the Esperanza Fire and covering the trial of Raymond Oyler. The result is a thrilling, moment-to-moment insider's chronicle of that devastating and tragic inferno and the pursuit, capture, and prosecution of the man who intentionally set it.

Read the "book reviews" on Amazon before judging.

I live on "The Hill" which is what the locals call the mountain-top communities where this horrible fire occurred. This was a terrible time in our shared history and only now, 12 years later, do I feel the knot of pain, anger, and grief letting up the briefest amount. Going off "The Hill on the Banning side" you can still see dead trees and slowly recovering scars from the fire...as well as the site where the firefighters lost their lives. It's hard not to allow the hatred to return. So that's what you need to know about me. Please read more below regarding the book itself.

John Maclean has written a well researched and yet compassionate book abut a tough topic. You don't need to be affiliated with the fire community to understand and be pulled into this book. I was terribly disappointed to see the poor review given by another Audible client and encourage you to click on "Amazon reviews" before passing this book by. The reviews there are better than I could write and the sheer number of positive reviews will give you a better idea of the value of Maclean's work.

Excellent account of a tragic story

Very well researched and presented factual account of the Esperanza Fire and the tragic loss of 5 firefighters. The story is clearly explained and presented in a very engaging fashion. An excellent read for anyone but with particular lessons for firefighters.